


hotter than a jet stream

by marcaskane (noblydonedonnanoble)



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Deviates From Canon, F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 16:20:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7514965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noblydonedonnanoble/pseuds/marcaskane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hotch tries (and fails) to ignore his growing feelings for another member of the team. </p><p>[Soulmark AU: Each person has a unique birth mark on their body. If you fall in love with someone, their mark appears on your skin.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	hotter than a jet stream

**Author's Note:**

> This fic remains canon-compliant through the beginning of s6, at which point it begins to deviate slightly.
> 
> Many thanks to oddlyfamiliar over at tumblr for helping me out as I sorted through potential scenarios for this fic!

                Pregnancy is not the first thing that Aaron Hotchner imagines when Will mentions that something is “going on,” but it’s not too far down the list, and the moment it occurs, that’s the one that sticks. Even though it feels like a far-off and fairly absurd possibility, his gut begins to churn.

                He asks, “Is there a problem?” There’s a wild moment during which he hopes that there is something actually wrong, and he hates himself for it.

                But then the way that JJ looks to Will, her expression as she casts her gaze over the team…

                “I’m pregnant,” she says, but Hotch already as good as knew that.

                The ache in his gut lingers for days, which he attributes to the fact that she didn’t want to tell him. Only because she didn’t feel comfortable telling him.

 

*

 

                It’s months later, when Aaron is receiving his yearly physical, that his doctor says it. “Oh, so this is why you haven’t mentioned Haley.”

                “What are you talking about?”

                The doctor grazes his hand over a spot an inch or two to the left of the small of Hotch’s back. “This new mark. Whose is it?”

                “I… what new mark?” He strains to look, squirming around and peering over his shoulder in vain.

                “Mmm, I see.” The doctor hums thoughtfully, looking to Aaron in the full-length mirror with a smile. “So you haven’t seen it yet.” When Hotch shakes his head, the doctor grabs a mirror. “Get up and stand over here, I’ll show it to you.”

                With some clever angling between the two mirrors, Aaron catches a glimpse of the new mark on his back.

                “Christ,” he breathes.

                The doctor’s expression turns alarmingly mild. Hotch wonders how hard the man has to work to look so neutral as he asks, “Does this come as a surprise?”

                Aaron’s eyes trace the mark repeatedly. He tries to ignore how feverish he feels as he compares it to his mental image of the birthmark on the back of JJ’s neck, directly beneath her right ear. He can’t be sure without a closer examination, but he’s still almost certain that they’re identical.

                “It probably shouldn’t.”

 

*

 

                Hotch is well aware that he’ll never know for sure when JJ’s mark appeared on his body. He’ll never know if it was gradual or abrupt. That said, he spends a fair amount of time – more time than he’d like to admit – trying to sort through his feelings.

                Gradually, he accepts that it was probably around the time the team found out that she was pregnant. Looking back, he remembers, in a new light, the way that his opinion of Will shifted after New York.

                Just like a profiler to read everyone else effortlessly but to be unaware of their own strong romantic feelings.

                Because now that he knows they’re there, he knows that his feelings for JJ are strong. Working with the team suddenly presents a new challenge. It’s been second nature for him to conceal his emotions from them for as long as he can remember, but now it’s harder because he’s conscious of his… attraction to JJ.

                He’s scared to call it love, scared to accept that fact while Haley’s mark is still on his wrist. Even if her mark has been fading away as the frequency of their calls diminishes, she’s still the most important woman in his life. Has been for a very long time.

                If his life was difficult before, loving JJ makes it almost impossible.

 

*

 

                Nearly the entire team is asleep on the flight back home after one of the most grueling cases they’ve had in months. Hotch was passed out too until Dave’s head lolled in his direction and his loud snores jolted Hotch out of his fitful doze.

                He contents himself with sitting there, eyes still closed, trying to remember how it felt to have Jack curled up against his chest when they’d fallen asleep in front of the television together the week before.

                Then he hears Emily murmur, “Is he bothered that you still don’t have it?”

                “Actually, he’s been surprisingly understanding.” And that’s JJ’s voice. “We discussed it after my last ultrasound, and he said some very sweet things about… feelings developing at different rates, things like that. He’s not hurt by it at all.”

                “Does it bother _you_? I mean, you’re… you’re committed to him, so don’t you find it strange that you don’t have his mark yet?”

                Aaron cracks his eyes open a smidge, and it’s good that he does because he just barely catches a glimpse of JJ hesitantly shaking her head. “No. You can’t predict when someone’s mark will show up. And sometimes it…” She pauses. Hotch strains to listen closer, just in case she’s lowered her voice, but then: “No. It doesn’t bother me.”

 

*

 

                Motherhood suits JJ. As soon as she leaves the office, Henry is her whole world. Even when they’re in the field, he remains a part of her world in a way that Hotch has never been able to manage with Jack. He attributes this to a particular strength of character which Hotch doesn’t possess, and which he envies her for.

                The first time Aaron holds Henry, the infant grasps Aaron’s thumb. For a few heart-stopping moments, it seems like he’s not going to let go. JJ is fond and verging on apologetic, as though she can sense Hotch’s discomfort, but he is gracious and gentle, smiling down at Henry.

                “Well, if you’re sure,” she says. He just nods, only letting go when Henry loosens his grip.

                JJ doesn’t know that Aaron retreats to privately suppress his tears. Aaron doesn’t know what he’s crying for.

 

*

 

                There is a moment when he almost tells her, about a week after Morgan takes on the role of team leader. She’s alone in the break room of the newest in a long line of small police stations, nursing a cup of coffee while the rest of the team is out on various assignments.

                “Is Reid with you?” she asks Aaron when she spots him.

                He leans against the counter across from her, shaking his head. “He ran out to grab a bite to eat. I can call him if you like, ask him to get you something.”

                “No, no, that’s alright. I’m not hungry yet.” JJ fixes her focus on Aaron’s crossed arms—his index finger is tapping furiously against his forearm. “Nervous?”

                “What, me?” Hotch uncrosses his arms immediately. “Of course not.” Maybe he’d feel flustered or embarrassed if he weren’t so proud of her for noticing. His heart sings out to her.

                And she looks carefully at him. Fond, but like she’s trying to decide whether she’d like to fight him.

                _“I’ve found your mark on my back,”_ he almost blurts.

                But JJ doesn’t fight him and he doesn’t blurt out anything.

 

*

 

                Aaron has plenty of reasons to feel guilty after Haley’s death. The team is implicitly aware of most of them, of course, but in the months following the event, he finds himself feeling particularly conflicted about the one thing that none of them can know.

                Haley’s mark stopped fading that day. It remains on his skin as a dull grey that haunts him, particularly after Jack catches him one day with his sleeves rolled up and asks him why it’s not as dark as it used to be.

                She told him to make sure that Jack knows about love, and he doesn’t know how he can do that when there’s proof of the reasons to doubt love right on his wrist. It doesn’t matter that it’s still there—only that it’s mostly gone.

                Meanwhile, he only allows himself to look at JJ’s mark sporadically. He’ll peer at it in the bathroom mirror about once a week, half-hoping that it will be gone each time.

 

*

 

                “I’ll miss you.”

                It’s not a lie. JJ’s departure has been inevitable since he heard about it, but in this moment, Aaron’s agony hits him with a remarkable severity that he could not have anticipated. She’s not even gone and he’s already missing her.

                But he shakes her hand to say goodbye, and somehow that small gesture feels like one of the biggest lies he’s ever told.

 

*

 

                JJ visits the office sometimes. It’s never for him, it’s always so she can grab a quick cup of coffee with Garcia or get lunch with Spencer and Emily. Hotch doesn’t try to make plans, and neither does she. That said, she always stops by his office when she comes to the Bureau. She hovers a few steps inside the doorway and inquires after Jack, and each time he nearly asks if he can join in on the day’s outing.

                He talks himself out of it because of Will, which he knows is the most nonsense excuse he could be giving himself. As it is, though, the BAU always served as a reason why his attraction for her could exist as something theoretical, intangible.

                Once she’s gone, everything becomes far more concrete. He loves a woman who’s with someone else.

                Somehow, Aaron manages to miss JJ so much while she’s gone that he’s scared to engage with her when she’s around, scared that he’ll reveal too much of himself to a woman who might as well be a profiler (even if she’s afraid to truly acknowledge it).

               

*

 

                When JJ calls just as Hotch is about to sit Jack down to dinner, he answers the phone without a second thought. He half-expects it to be something urgent, dangerous, his heart is already racing, but instead: “I know this is _unbelievably_ last minute, but is there any chance you’d be able to watch Henry tonight?”

                He says yes. Jack, hungry and slightly disgruntled, returns to his toys until JJ arrives with Henry.

                Aaron has never seen her so dressed up. Her hair is done up, her dress hugs her curves comfortably and brings out the color of her eyes. For a few moments, he feels like he won’t be able to utter a word to her, but she’s so flustered that she starts in immediately, giving him a moment to take a breath.

                “You’re saving my life,” she tells him. “I’ll be back around midnight and I’ll explain then but I’m almost half an hour late.”

                “Right. Sure. See you then,” Hotch stammers.

                JJ gives Henry a kiss, and then she is gone just as quickly as she swept in.

                This is not the first time he and JJ have brought Jack and Henry together, but it is the first time since she left the BAU, and they are eager to play and catch up. They wear themselves out rather quickly, though—not too long after dinner, they ask Hotch if they can watch a movie, and he’s unsurprised when they fall asleep on a chair together a bit over halfway through.

 

*

 

                Because he is reluctant to move them, the boys are still curled up together when JJ arrives about 20 minutes after 12. She still looks antsy, so he offers her some tea, and she accepts.

                Hovering over the kettle with Aaron, JJ says, “Sorry again for calling you so out of the blue. We haven’t even… I know it’s been a while since you heard from me, and I didn’t want my first call to you to be about last-minute babysitting.”

                “Don’t apologize. I’m glad you thought you could reach out to me.” This is true. Although Hotch now also finds himself feeling guilty for not reaching out to her, even if she clearly just feels guilty about her own lack of communication. “What happened to your sitter, though?”

                “She has mono, so she was totally within her right to cancel, but she didn’t call me until half an hour before she was supposed to get to my house.”

                Aaron cringes. “That’s tricky. So then you called your way through the team until you got to me?”

                He means it as a joke, simply wants to poke fun at the fact that they haven’t really tried to talk since she left. But her face falls. “No, that’s not… I called Penelope first, because I thought she was the most likely to be free, but when she said the team was home—”

                “I was just teasing, JJ, I’m sorry.”

                But she plows on. “—when she said the team was home, the only reason I didn’t call you first was that I know you were probably enjoying your time alone with Jack.”

                “Oh.” Aaron throat suddenly feels very dry, and he swallows sharply. The kettle comes to a boil, making him jump, and for a few minutes they busy themselves with preparing their drinks.

                JJ makes to sit down at the kitchen table, but Hotch suggests that they go look in on the boys, so they end up on the sofa across the sleeping children.

                “What were you so dressed up for, anyway?” The question Aaron’s been itching to ask since he first saw her.

                “Some government thing,” JJ murmurs, throwing it out there like she’s trying to minimize how much it says that her office likes her enough to send her out to mingle with very important people. “I didn’t really want to go, I knew it was going to be too stuffy. You know how bosses can be, though.”

                “I do.” Neither of them elaborates, but Hotch has no doubt that they’re both thinking of how determined Strauss was to force JJ to accept her promotion. After a pregnant pause, he asks, “But I hope you and Will enjoyed yourself anyway.”

                He can tell immediately that this was the wrong thing to say: JJ goes sort of stiff beside him, and she suddenly seems to become very interested in her mug. “Oh, I thought… I expected Emily or Penelope to tell you…”

                “Tell me what?”

                JJ ignores his attempt to make eye contact, instead staring at his chest when she says, “Will and I are taking a break. Have been for a few weeks.”

                Aaron doesn’t bother to conceal his surprise. “I’m sorry to hear that. Are you… are you alright?”

                “I will be. I’m mostly worried about Henry. He doesn’t really understand what happened, and it doesn’t help that it’s because of something so…” She falters, and there’s a moment when Hotch thinks she isn’t going to continue. But then she looks up at him, her eyes sad. “You wouldn’t break up with someone just because they don’t have your mark, would you?”

                Hotch feels his stomach drop. “No. Of course not.”

                Now JJ’s finally holding his gaze. Aaron feels… not tense, exactly, but he’s anticipating something that he can’t quite articulate.

                “Daddy?”

                Henry begins to stir moments after Jack, and the conversation comes to a jarring halt after that.

 

*

 

                Aaron wants to be excited about JJ’s return to the team, and for the most part he is.

                It’s just that… after he found out about Will leaving, he’d allowed himself to imagine that the two of them might someday be in a place where he could try to pursue a relationship. If she wanted.

                That possibility seems to fade to nothing the moment she’s reporting to him again, even if her mark continues to linger.

 

*

 

                JJ isn’t even supposed to be with Aaron, Emily, and Morgan. The four of them are picking up some food for themselves and the rest of the team after a press conference when the unsub walks straight through the door.

                He must catch a glimpse of one of their badges, because next thing they know, the agents are ducked behind the counter, Morgan shouting into his cell phone as he and Prentis keep their guns trained on the unsub, who’s wielding a gun of his own.

                Then Aaron groans beside JJ, and she realizes that he’s clutching his side. Blood is pooling on the floor beneath him.

                “Hotch, he hit you? Why the hell didn’t you say anything?”

                “I’m fine, the bullet just grazed me,” he grunts. But only a few seconds later, he tries to shift and immediately flinches.

                She frowns. “Let me take a look at it.”

                Of course Aaron argues, but JJ wears him down quickly once Morgan tells them that they will officially be treating this as a hostage situation, meaning that they don’t know for sure how long the four of them will be stuck there. Hotch rolls his eyes as he turns to rest on his uninjured side and untucks a part of his shirt, which is soaked with blood.

                “You’re joking, right?” JJ asks. “I can hardly see the wound like this.”

                Aaron huffs. “You can see it just fine.”

                JJ’s exasperation is amplified by the tenuous circumstances that they’re in – Morgan and Emily’s angry shouting at the unsub is hardly a mild background to her exclamation: “What are you worried about? I just want to clean it up a bit. I promise I’ll be gentle.”

                “No, that’s not it, I just…” He seems unable to come up with a particularly valid excuse.

                They stare each other down for what feels like eons as Emily and Morgan talk above them. Finally, Aaron relents. “Fine, go ahead.”

                While she’s untucking his shirt, Aaron allows himself to imagine that she might not see her mark. But he turns his head away the moment he hears her gasp and say, “Aaron…” So low and close that he doubts Morgan or Prentiss hears.

                “C’mon,” he tells the ground. “It can’t be that bad.”

                “You know that’s not—”

                “JJ?” Prentiss’s voice comes from above them, overflowing with concern. “You and Hotch are alright, yeah?”

                “Of course.” JJ clears her throat. “Hotch, I’m going to… look for a wash cloth to clean around the wound. You can go ahead and tuck your shirt back in.”

               

*

 

                It’s over a week before Aaron and JJ are in the same room alone, in large part due to his own engineering. If the rest of the team notices, they say nothing about it.

                When it does happen, it is by sheer accident. Hotch strolls into Penelope’s office, already talking into his folder about the background check he wants her to run on a victim of a crime who he suspects might be the unsub of another. And then: “She’s getting coffee.”

                He freezes, looking up at JJ and meeting her eye quite unintentionally. He’s already backing out of the room. “JJ. Sorry. I was… I’ll go, just ask Garcia to come by my office when she can.”

                “Please wait.”

                Aaron halts with one foot in the doorway. “JJ, I don’t…”

                She doesn’t look angry with him, not even annoyed. She mostly looks confused, and maybe a little hurt. “You don’t what?”

                “Can we talk about this later? Preferably not in Garcia’s office?”

                “When, then? You’ve been avoiding me since the diner.”

                This can’t be their working relationship from now on. Hotch knows that. “We can talk later. My office. Whenever you finish your work for the day, alright? I don’t care what I’m doing, I’ll drop it.”

 

*

 

                Nearly everyone else has already left the BAU when JJ knocks on Aaron’s door. All afternoon, he’s been compiling a mental list of all of the questions he can imagine her asking, in an attempt to be as prepared as possible. But everything leaves him the moment he looks up at her; the only thing he remains aware of is the way his heart aches for her.

                “Go ahead and close the door,” he tells her as a means to welcome her in. When she steps inside, JJ doesn’t move more than a few feet away from the door. Instead, she just hovers in front of Aaron with her arms crossed.

                The silence hangs between them, just as it has for the past week, but it’s more palpable when there’s nothing else to distract them.

                “How long has it been there?” JJ asks at last.

                “I’m not sure. I can’t say I make a habit of examining my own back in the mirror.” Or at least, he didn’t before JJ’s mark showed up there. “But I… I think it was around when we found out you were pregnant.”

                “Were you ever going to tell me?”

                He’s uninterested in lying, knows that she deserves his resolute honesty, so he tells her, “I wanted to sometimes. But I doubt I would have ever actually said anything.”

                She frowns at him. “Why not?”

                “Are… are you serious? JJ, even if I thought you were interested in me… you were pregnant. You were with Will. You’ve always reported to me—there’s an immense conflict of interests there. Even when you were at the Pentagon, even after I found out that Will was gone, I didn’t want to presume… Jack and I had just lost Haley, and you and Will had just broken up. I have a list a mile long of reasons why my feelings for you couldn’t matter.”

                “Couldn’t matter?” JJ echoes, gaping at him. “You’ve been in love with me for years. That matters, no matter how much you try to wish it away. Besides, how do you know…” She stops abruptly and crosses her arms a bit tighter over her chest. She speaks her next words only barely above a whisper. “Can I show you something?”

                “Of course.”

                JJ crosses the room and sits down in the chair across from Hotch, ducking down so that she can remove her shoe from her right foot. He’s desperate to ask what she’s doing, but he’s scared to break the silence in the room.

                “I’ve never known for sure,” she starts as she goes for her sock. “But I’m pretty sure—”

                Aaron doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “It’s mine.” Because his mark is right there on the bottom of JJ’s foot. He echoes her earlier question. “How long has it been there?”

                “It started to fade in about a year and a half after I joined the team. It took nearly a year for it to get this dark. I couldn’t even figure out who I was falling for at first. Some of my friends had their fingers crossed for Morgan.”

                Regardless of the seriousness of the situation, Hotch can’t help laughing, and JJ smiles. He doesn’t blame her for looking relieved. This… this is more like them, how they’re supposed to be. Not dancing around each other.

                That said, he’s already considering the reality of the situation, and it worries him. “I’m still your direct supervisor, though.”

                Her face falls, although she looks far from surprised. “I know.”

                “Neither of us is going to leave the BAU.”

                “I know.”

                “And having each other’s marks already… Strauss isn’t exactly going to consider that to be justification enough for an exception. I’d possibly get in trouble for not removing you from the team the moment your mark appeared. She’d probably want to send you elsewhere.”

                 JJ nods carefully. “I understand all of that. I’ve been thinking about it for the past week. But Hotch… I don’t want to ignore this. We can, if that’s really what you want, but I don’t want to.”

                “I don’t want to either,” he murmurs. Knowing that she has his mark… it changes things. “I’ll see what I can do.”

 

*

 

                Morgan’s reaction is not quite what Aaron was expecting. “Damn, Hotch. I had no idea you had it that bad.”

                “You… You knew? How long have you known?”

                “Ages. I saw her mark when you were changing in the locker room one day, but it was pretty light… I figured you just had a crush on her.”

                Hotch shakes his head. “And JJ?”

                “No one needs to see your mark on her to know that she’s in love with you, Aaron.”

                “Oh.” This gives Aaron pause. A large part of him still has trouble believing that JJ could possibly be interested in him, and he finds it… reassuring to know that the rest of the team sees it as a given. “Why do we bother to hide anything from each other, anyway?”

               

*

 

                “Sir, I have a few cases that I need to go over with you.”

                Aaron looks up from his desk and takes in the sight of JJ. She’s biting her lip absent-mindedly as she glances over a file, and something about the sight is so stunning and pure. “No, not with me. You’ll have to talk them over with Morgan.”

                “What? Why?”

                He’s so nervous about her reaction that he can’t manage to smile outright. But his lips quirk up as he rises to his feet and says, carefully, “We were going to announce it to the whole team at once, but I might as well tell you now. Derek’s taking over the team, effective as of this morning. For good this time.”

                “Derek’s… taking over the team?” JJ blinks at Aaron, digesting this information. “Is this because of—”

                “Yes. So if…” Hotch hesitates, allowing his smile to grow wider even as his stomach churns. “So if you want this, I’m here.”

                JJ spends enough time processing this that he begins to worry he’s made some grave miscalculation. But then her expression changes to one of pure joy. “Oh my God, of course I do.”

                She reaches the center of the office in an instant and Hotch meets her there. She grabs his neck to pull him close, and he’s shut his eyes before their lips have even met so that he can relish in her touch and allow it to consume him.


End file.
